The Fellowship of Lifea Christian-based vegetarian network
founded in 1973

Letters

The New Green Revolution (1973)

By Guy Brinkworth, S.J.

Catholic Herald (2/2/73)

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez was a Jesuit lay brother who said his Rosary
continuously and well. Perhaps because of this he inspired a young priest
to go and spend himself to death comforting materially and spiritually the
broken human cargoes of African slaves that were dumped on the stinking
wharves of what is now modern Colombia to enrich the nominally Catholic
traders. He might thus be described as one of the pioneers of
anti-apartheid, and St. Peter Claver. his protege, as its great patron.

We have little slavery now. But we have a Third World which comprises
two-thirds of humanity and in which a large proportion still live in con
ditions of extreme squalor, of shivery to economics. illiteracy and
ignorance. The slave traders or the seventeenth century no doubt sopped
their Christian consciences by telling themselves that their victims who
died in their tens of thousands were only half human after all. Our
abortionists today are still using that argument though the recent
findings of legal experts concerning the rights of the unborn child
contradict the argument.

And may there not he at the back of our own minds, some vague judgment
that so many or the Third World are "ignorant," "lazy," irresponsible and
quite undeserving of any help?

These are cruel and most unChristian as well as completely ignorant
sentiments. Of course the Third World has its fair share of the lazy: for
idleness would seem to be a part of the curse of Adam. But let us remember
one thing. A disgraceful proportion of these people is trapped
inextricably in a downward vicious spiral of protein deficiency and
enervating hopelessness. Hundreds of millions are demoralised by the
seeming unendlessness of any form of stable employment as we know it in
the affluent club.

No, not "laziness": a more Christian and accurate prognosis would be
protein deficiency and its companion despair.* Recently we have heard a
great deal about "The Green Revolution" which was initiated by
agricultural technologists who produced new hardy strains of carbo-hydrate
foods as wheat and rice which gave treble and even greater yields. This
breakthrough came just in time to save tens of millions from starvation.
But these are not proteins, and not by bread alone can a man work and
resist disease and languor. Many, despite a glut of rice. are still
enmeshed in that downward protein spiral.

Providence. however, has acted again. Till recently we have had to rely
on animals and fish to convert vegetation into edible protein for us. This
is done by the mechanism within the animal extracting proteins already in
plants or with the help of bacteria and enzymes converting carbohydrates
(starch etc.) into the more complex and vital protein molecule. It is a
costly, wasteful, dirty and cruel process. For many, modern "factory
farming" is a degrading business. And the growing use of drugs to increase
yields might even become dangerous.

So the arrival of pilot plants for processing green vegetation direct
into "meats" on an industrial scale can be regarded as bringing new hope
and life. For instance, a technique has been perfected and, as we shall
see, is already commercially in production. which extracts the protein
from a podded pea.

Simultaneously, in Sweden Svenska Sockerfabriks have been operating
successfully a pilot plan for converting waste potato starches into an
edible protein food by the use of yeast enzymes. Thus such natural
tropical starch foods as tapioca could be converted into edible protein in
situ. The Ranks-Hovis-McDougall combine, already providing Courtaulds with
much of its vegetable proteins is experimenting a process of converting
starches into protein by means of the action of a microfungus.

And perhaps most astonishing is to find that B.P. is well on its way to
mass-production of "microbial protein" suitable for animal feed (so needed
in the Third World) from oil and natural gas.

Optimistically we used the word "hope". But it is clear that there is
no hope for the hopeless if we regard (and we have already begun to do
this) these triumphs of "soft" technology simply as monopolies of the
affluent club to make us richer and fatter; and as further devices for
intensifying and consolidating the economic slavery and bondage of the
poor nations to the rich.

As Christians we needs must organise ourselves immediately to lobby and
vote and in the use of all the media to ensure that the Second Green
Revolution, which owing to its technical complexity is highly
capital-intensive, is used first for the benefit of God's poorer children.
We must be willing to do without so that we can share God's gifts.

The factories surely must be built in situ in the needy countries
themselves and our administrative, technical and organising know-how
deployed to provide the simple raw materials from local acreage and
labour.

Here lies the hope of arresting that downward protein spiral with a
generous and stewardly use of the Second Green Revolution. Is the fact
that over half the population of the new European Community, so intent on
raising the standard of living of its own members, is Catholic to count or
nothing?